


Camp Secrets

by enbyred



Series: Nelix Childhood AU [2]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: AU, Childhood, Felix gets a cat, Fluff, M/M, Nelix, Summer Camp, he makes stupid cheese jokes, so does nathalie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-15 04:03:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17521655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enbyred/pseuds/enbyred
Summary: Felix got close to a boy and a cat during his two weeks at camp. Can he keep either?





	Camp Secrets

“I can’t believe you’re actually gonna sneak her home,” Nino said with a laugh while he watched Felix cradle the black kitten in his arms.

“She’s my child now,” he insisted, his face serious. “I can’t abandon my child in the woods. We’ve bonded. She’s mine, and she’s coming home with me.” Felix turned his attention back to his bags, trying to decide which one would be best to keep the kitten for the drive home.

Nino snickered and opened Felix’s backpack wide enough to expose the stuffed cat and jacket. “Look, it’ll be nice and comfy for her in there, and she’ll have a friend. Do you have a plan so you can smuggle her home? She might be meowing in the car.”

Shrugging, Felix replied, “As long as she’s quiet for long enough, it’ll be fine. She loves napping, so maybe she’ll fall asleep.” He gently lowered her down into the backpack, where she started kneading his jacket and purring loudly. He couldn’t help the smile on his face, or resist the urge to scratch behind her ears.

“She’s so happy,” Nino commented, slipping his hand into Felix’s and leaning on his shoulder. “She gets to go home with you. Wish I could go with you too.”

Felix shifted to wrap his arm around Nino’s shoulders and hold him close. “No you don’t. I wish I could go home with  _ you _ . Being at your house is nicer.”

The boys stood in silence for a few moments in the musty cabin. Felix wished it could stay like this forever, sweating in a cabin in the middle of the woods with the boy he wanted to marry, adopting a cat on the spot. He imagined a future where they had their own cabin together, with snow falling peacefully outside as they drank hot chocolate, or tea, or coffee, and snuggled under a blanket. The scene in his mind made his whole body relax as he hugged Nino.

The spell was broken when Adrien called his name. Felix looked toward the door and saw Nathalie standing there, stoic as ever, wearing her usual suit with hands clasped behind her back as beads of sweat formed on her forehead. Felix wanted to laugh at her - clearly, she didn’t know how to rough it in the woods. But with the serious expression on her face, ready to whisk him away, he tensed and shrunk, retracting his arms from Nino.

“Felix.” She nodded. “Are you ready to go?”

No. He wasn’t. He wanted to stay forever. He wanted to grab back on to Nino and never let go. He wanted to tell Nathalie that he was never going home, he never wanted to see his father again.

What escaped his mouth was a whispered, “Yes, Nathalie.”

Nino caught his hand and squeezed, giving him an encouraging, if sad, smile. “We’ll write. And we’ll see each other again.”

Felix looked into Nino’s earnest, golden eyes, and as his heart felt like it was slowly getting colder, there remained a spark of warmth at the core that only grew stronger the longer Nino looked at him. There was a magic in Nino’s eyes, and Felix wanted to live in his gaze forever.

Nino wrapped Felix into a hug, squeezing tightly enough that Felix was afraid that the tears building up behind his eyes would be forced out. He shut his eyes and hugged back, fistfuls of Nino’s blue shirt in his hands.

“I love you,” Nino whispered.

Ah. There were the tears. No forcing them out necessary. Felix trembled and held on tighter, burying his face into Nino’s shoulder to let himself cry for a few more moments.

But he couldn’t keep Nathalie waiting. He took a deep breath and straightened up, peeling his arms away from Nino to wipe his eyes. Nino’s face was red with sadness, and yet he was still smiling. He was still smiling and holding Felix’s hand to let him know that it was okay. And maybe it was.

Felix relented and closed his backpack (leaving a few inches open for the kitten) before carefully putting it on his back and grabbing his suitcase. Walking toward the door of the cabin to join Nathalie, he stopped and turned to Nino, who was wiping his eyes with the heel of his palm as Adrien put a hand on his shoulder supportively.

“I love you too, Nino.”

Nino choked out a sob and turned into Adrien, and Felix couldn’t bear to look at him anymore. He whipped back around and hurried out of the cabin, Nathalie helping him get his suitcase down the stairs as he made sure not to jostle the kitten too much. At least he had her. No one could force him to leave her behind if they didn’t know she was there. He just had to keep her secret for a little bit longer, and then nobody would have a choice but to let him keep her.

He couldn’t focus on his feet on the way to the car; the only things occupying his mind were the kitten in his backpack, and the love of his life in the cabin. (Lucky for him, he had learned how not to trip over roots and rocks during his two weeks at camp.) He vaguely acknowledged that Nathalie was pulling his suitcase, and having several issues with the uneven ground as she rolled it. She asked no questions. He had no answers. They walked in silence, save for her mutterings about how difficult it was to transport a suitcase while at camp.

When they reached the car, the Gorilla was waiting for them, and immediately popped the trunk for Felix’s luggage. He took the suitcase from Nathalie and tucked it carefully into the trunk, then reached for the backpack, which Felix held onto protectively.

“Books,” he blurted out. “I want to read on the drive home.” It technically wasn’t a lie. Most of his books were in his suitcase, but he had put the only one he’d bothered reading into the front pocket of his backpack.

They allowed him to keep it without a fight, and he crawled into the back seat of the car, putting his backpack gently next to him. He opened the main pocket a few more inches and peeked in to see a pair of bright green eyes staring up at him. She meowed quietly, and to cover it up, Felix immediately unzipped the front pocket to grab his book, hoping the rustling would distract Nathalie and the Gorilla from the small cat sounds. He sighed in relief when neither turned in suspicion. This would be a long car ride of being more active than usual just so he could cover up the sounds of his kitten.

This cat needed a name. He couldn’t just keep calling her “the kitten.” As he opened his book and absently looked at the pages, he mulled over possible names for a black cat. Shadow and Midnight sounded too generic. With eyes that green, he could call her Emerald. Was that too cheesy? What if he did give her a cheesy name? Brie? Ricotta? Maybe something like Pepper instead. Maybe not. 

They were almost back to the mansion when the inevitable happened. The kitten must have been hungry, because she began meowing loudly, crawling out of the backpack and evading Felix’s hands as he tried desperately to keep her hidden. But he was too late.

“Felix.” Nathalie’s voice came to him from the front seat. He slowly turned and looked at her, her eyes trained on the kitten that had escaped the backpack and was pawing at Felix’s hand.

“Hi Nathalie,” he replied. “Isn’t the weather beautiful? Lovely day for a drive. It’s so lovely, I bet my father might even open a window and not want to hear anything about a cat.”

The corner of her mouth twitched up as she met his gaze. “Felix, why is there a cat materializing from your backpack? There wasn’t a cat when we left the camp.”

“Yes there was,” he explained, petting the kitten’s head. “You just didn’t see her, and you don’t see her now. You don’t know anything about her.”

She shook her head amusedly. “I don’t know what cat you’re talking about. As far as your parents are concerned, I have no idea that there’s a kitten in your lap at this very moment.” Without further argument, she turned back around and faced forward in the car.

That was surprisingly easy. The hard part would be keeping her a secret from his father for the rest of his life.

“Does your kitten have a name?” Nathalie asked.

Felix revisited the names he had been considering before. “Hmm...Cheddar? No, that would be good for an orange cat, not a black one. I like Ricotta.”

“Cheese names,” Nathalie said, more as a statement than a question. “I certainly didn’t expect names so  _ cheesy _ from you.”

He grinned, stroking the kitten as she curled up in his lap. “Maybe not a cheese name. I don’t know yet. I’ll ask Nino.” Nino. The one he had said “I love you” to upon leaving the cabin with Nathalie right there. Hurriedly, he said, “He’s my friend, and he’s great, and we had a lot of fun, and Father doesn’t have to know about him, he’s just a boy I met at camp, that’s all.”

Nathalie sighed and told him, “I know that he’s the boy whose family you stayed with when you went missing for a few days. You don’t need to worry about anything, Felix. You’re going to keep your kitten, as well as Nino. Your mother wanted you to make friends, and you made one. That’s all she asked for.” She sounded so calm about it, like there really was no issue that she could see. And, for the first time, this was something his father might not approve of that made Felix begin to think that maybe there really wasn’t a problem. Maybe this was good, even if his father didn’t think it was.

Once they arrived at the mansion, the Gorilla took Felix’s suitcase and allowed him some time to get the kitten to settle back in the backpack again and zip it up just enough to hide her. His mother was at the door in seconds to greet him, scooping him up in her arms and showering him with kisses. He laughed and hugged her as tightly as he could, immediately beginning to recap his favorite moment from camp - the bonfire from the previous night. There was a singalong that his counselor Adrien had helped lead, and he got to toss some branches in the fire. Of course, only Nino got to know about what really went on during the bonfire, but at least he was in attendance for long enough to have a proper story for his mother.

She insisted that she had to come along to Felix's room to help him unpack. Felix cast a panicked look to Nathalie, who nodded seriously.

"Of course, Mrs. Agreste," she said. “Felix can tell you all the stories he told us in the car. I'm sure you'll love to hear them." She gave a small smile in Felix's direction, helping him to relax. That smile was Nathalie Code for letting him know that she was going to help. He returned her smile, calmer now, and led the way up to his room.

Once there, his mother sat on his bed and reached down to open his suitcase and help him unpack it, saying, “Tell me everything about camp, Fe. I want to hear about the friends you made, and all of your best and worst moments, and the greatest thing you came home with.”

With another glance to Nathalie, Felix shrugged off his backpack and set it gently on his mother’s lap. She raised an eyebrow and looked down at the three-inch gap between the zipper pulls. It was so quiet in the room as she waited for Felix to show her what was going on that when the backpack meowed, she jumped and nearly dropped it on the floor.

Grinning, she unzipped the backpack and scooped the black kitten into her arms. “You brought home a stray, oh, she’s so beautiful and sweet!” She scratched between the kitten’s ears and nuzzled her, despite the cat’s wriggling to run free. “I guess we’ll need cat supplies, won’t we? Litter and food, definitely some toys! Oh, Felix, what’s the matter?” She set the kitten down and pulled Felix into her arms.

When did he start crying? Was it before or after she started gushing about the cat? Before or after she even saw the cat? Either way, apparently tears were streaming down his cheeks, but he was as happy as could be in knowing that his mother was so delighted that he’d come home with a cat.

She retrieved a tablet to help Felix pick out a bed and some toys for the kitten, as well as order a litter box and some food for her. They agreed that the cat would primarily live in Felix’s room, and as long as Gabriel didn’t need to worry about taking care of a cat, he would be fine with having one in the house.

That evening, Felix wrote his first letter to Nino, letting him know how positively his mother and Nathalie had reacted to his sneaking a cat home. She stepped on the page three times and demanded that he pet her instead of write, but he let him know how much he missed him, as well as some possible names for the kitten. How had they not discussed that at camp? 

It was a week later when he got a letter back from Nino.

_ Fe, _

_ I miss you a lot. It’s great that they let you keep her! A boy as wonderful as you deserves a cat as wonderful as her. _

_ My mom wanted to hear all about the time I spent with you. She was so happy that we got to see each other again, and she’s trying to come up with plans to get us in the same place so we can spend more time together. So far, she and I have come up with brainwashing your dad to let you go to my school, and claiming to be long-lost relatives that want to spend time with you. Let us know if you have any ideas. _

_ You still haven’t named the kitten? I like the idea of cheese names, but I don’t think Ricotta or Gouda fit her. I know you don’t want to do Midnight or anything, but I’ve always thought that she’s as dark as ink. Maybe Inky? _

_ Tell me what you decide! I want to hear a name in your next letter! _

_ I love you. _

_ Nino. _

Felix carefully folded the letter and put it in the drawer of his nightstand, turning to the black ball of fur curled up on his desk chair.

“Inky,” he whispered with a smile. Her ear twitched and she blinked her eyes open with an inquisitive purr. “I’ll call you Inky.”

**Author's Note:**

> My dearest sister Steampunkcircus asked how Felix got Inky home. You can thank her for this (by going and reading her fic Who Said That Every Wish).


End file.
